• Tour de France - While wearing Holland's first ever Maillot Jaune (race leader's Yellow Jersey), Wim Van Est lost control descending the Col d'Aubisque. Van Est fell 75 meters down a ravine and landed on a ledge. His team had to string together spare tires as a rope to pull Van Est to safety. As race leader he abandoned the Tour.
• Rock & Roll - Cleveland disc jockey, Alan Freed , began playing rhythm and blues records. The R&B sound, labeled “race music” by his mostly white audience, swept the nation and the world. Freed tapped a 1947 Wild Bill Moore song “We're Gonna Rock, We're Gonna Roll” to create the phenomenon of Rock & Roll.
• USA - United Nations headquarters were officially opened in New York City.
• TV - I Love Lucy , starring Lucille Ball, Desi Arnes, Vivian Vance, and William Frawley, debuted on CBS.
• Great Britain - Winston Churchill became Prime Minister.
Notable Deaths -
Sinclair Lewis, 1885-1951, died in Rome of heart disease. He was the first American author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930.
